Learning Curve
by HalfASlug
Summary: Regrets are just mistakes you didn't learn from and chances you didn't take.


_Disclaimer: I'm not the BBC or RTD_

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"I may have the answer to our problem."

The mobile he used to lose every five seconds (usually on purpose) but now carries everywhere is pressed against the Doctor's ear as he navigates the busy London street. Once he realised it wasn't a needless trapping of a lesser human life but a constant link to Rose he found it difficult to go back. Especially on days like today when he's heading into Torchwood Tower to work on a project that no one else is capable of handling and she's insisting she wants a day of bad films and even worse junk food.

"What problem would that be, Miss Tyler?" he asks, knowing he's grinning around his words and not caring.

"That party Mum wants us at Saturday," she replies. "I was chatting to Gina yesterday, yeah, and it turns out she needs a couple of agents to check out some dodgy goings on in Zambia."

"Ooh Zambia! I haven't been there since the first Independence Day. Now _that_ was a party. Woke up in Lusaka three days later with one shoe and a ladle. Jamie never did explain how we got that..."

"Exactly. It just so happens we need to fly out tonight and have no chance of being done before Saturday."

"That's a terrible coincidence."

"And that is what I will tell Mum when I explain how I completely forgot about the Vitex do when I signed us up. And Gina has already filed the paperwork so there's no getting out of it."

"So not only do we not have to put up with various Mr and Mrs Pompous of Pompington, Upper Pompbrookshire-"

"But we get a holiday, chasing aliens and saving the day."

Of all the humans on all the planets in all the galaxies, this is the one that walked into the building he was about to blow up. Normally he isn't one for fate and luck, but meeting someone with the same zest for life and reckless disregard for linear living as him is as close to either as he's ever going to get.

"Rose Tyler-"

A sequence of beeps sound in his ear so he checks the display. The screen is informing him an essential MobiCore update is taking place and the device must be powered down for it to do so.

"No, no, no, no-" he mutters, jabbing the on button, hoping for an override. A loading bar appears, showing him the pathetic amount of progress it's making. He's never going to admit it aloud but there's a chance Rose _may_ have been right when she told him using his phone in experiments might stop it from working properly.

The days he spent as a Lord of Time are long gone but he still understands that it doesn't heal all wounds and can't possibly begin to medicate others. Human expressions he never understood before about events from long ago feeling like yesterday have a whole new resonance now. Right now, one is prickling against his skin and coiling around his stomach as though his projection is still on a beach. Though his trainers left no footprints in the sand, his words and, more importantly, his pauses, caused more of imprint on him that he could've ever suspected.

His mind snaps back to the present and he takes off at a sprint back in the direction he came from.

It's all very familiar, the running, but at the same time a reminder of how it's all changed. His feet pound the pavement, dodging pedestrians as his arms and legs pump just like old times. However, instead of being able to calculate where he's heading and why or how far away the hostile enemy he's escaping is, there's only enough spare energy in this human body to concentrate on a solitary goal.

 _Get to Rose._

It's terrifying, this single mindedness. His entire being, every cell, honed on this objective. It makes him worry about what he's missing, what he hasn't considered.

With that thought, he flings himself across a busy road, leaving abrasive horns and yelled expletives in his wake.

It's a struggle to breathe properly now. It's another reminder that he's slowly dying in an inadequate vessel that's falling apart around him. Each step acts as a countdown of his slow decay and he can't think about it for too long.

Everything is so finite and final. Everything has its time. Everything withers and everything dies and he can feel his blood tearing through his arteries to prevent it.

He rips open the door to their building and doesn't acknowledge the woman he pushes past.

The irony of it all is that, under the fear, the displacement and the confusion, he's never felt more alive.

He races up the stairs two at a time when he sees the lift is on another floor. His head is dizzy, his lungs burning and it feels like one of his ribs is poking out of his chest. He must be sweating and making undignified noises but all he hears is the voice in his head, now in perfect time with the metronome of his heart beat.

 _Get to Rose. Get to Rose. Get to Rose._

Life is what you make of it, he decides when he finally reaches their floor. And he's not making the same mistakes again.

Too wound up to find his key or sonic, he thumps on the door a couple of time and bends forward to rest his hands on his knees. His throat is so dry, his desperate gasps for air sting. It's so bad that when the door finally opens to reveal his goal he can do nothing but pant and gesture weakly.

Before he's got his bearings, he's been pulled inside the flat as Rose checks he's alone. She's telling him how she didn't mean to hang up, that she isn't sure what happened and asks if he's been attacked.

He shakes his head but his heart swells with pride and love and comfort.

(Somehow there's room in his chest along with his panic, but he isn't sure how. Human bodies are still amazing him.)

She isn't the naive teenager he met oh so long ago now. She's so much more and he wishes he could find the words to tell her but he can't even find space in his lungs for air at the minute.

Then again maybe the feeling in his heart has something to do with the running.

But he isn't running anymore, not physically or away from the words he understands now really do need saying.

He meets her questioning gaze with a wry smile.

"I love you," he manages to get out.

It takes a moment for Rose to realise what's happening but he recognises the still present but greatly diminished pain in her eyes when she does.

He frets over how she'll react. He's almost definitely going to be late and, now he's stationary and looking at her, he wonders if he's overreacting. It's just that anything that reminds him of the look he etched onto her face when she realised he was fading away into nothing still twists him into a guilty nosedive. She could respond with a laugh of relief, a reassuring return of the sentiment or a vengeful "quite right too" but she doesn't. Instead Rose knows exactly whatever needs before even he does.

She touches his cheek and stokes her thumb over the crows feet he's been in denial about until this moment. Leaning up on her tip toes, she kisses him, because this is the life they are making in the wake of their old mistakes. This is their adventure and they are living it one day at a time.

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 _Thanks for reading!_


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